Lord Lisvane: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, for his kind reference to what I said in Committee and subsequently. In order to set the mind of the noble Viscount at rest, I suggest that the wording relating to the Joint Committee in Amendment 2 is entirely correct.
It is a very bad idea to try to regulate parliamentary proceedings by means of statute, and it very often ends in tears or worse. In this case, should Amendment 2 survive into the final version of the Bill presented for assent, it will be for the Houses to set up a Joint Committee. That Joint Committee, following the ancient practice that the interpretation of the orders of reference of the committee are a matter for that committee, will take a view on what constitutes “substantial”, so there will be a certain amount of flexibility available at that point. It will also not be justiciable, because the operation of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights would prevent a court second-guessing what the committee decided.